What did he do? Piss on the orchid? The tax on tobacco products is too low! It needs to be at least high enough to offset the cost to the public treating tobacco caused diseases. The higher taxes are on smokes the fewer kids start smoking, after a certain age you are less likely to start. The tobacco corps are moving into countries that have no laws.

Well Tobacco in general is a lucrative business. It pretty much always has been, since the start of America. It's kind of sad how intertwined we are with the product.

And he knocked the pot over(spilling out all the dirt), then stepped on it and broke the stem off. We replanted it, and waited, but it never regrew. :( My mom, rather than trying to give it a "cold season" in the fridge just tossed it.

Tobacco leaves on the dollar bill, the first slaves were brought to work the tobacco crop, long history. When GI's got free cigarettes during the war that increased tobacco profits by millions! The most addictive drug known to man.

Agreed. Some of the withdrawal symptoms for Opiates are low blood pressure, etc--this includes withdrawal from morphine. If you aren't properly weaned off you can get sick just from not having it.

Meth also has a massive amount of problems and long-term symptoms, including damaging the dopamine(pleasure chemical) receptors--so nothing feels as good as massive amounts of meth. Nothing. Not to mention the infamous Meth Mouth. Tobacco stains your teeth, but Meth makes you lose your teeth. Nicotine is also a drug you can actually function on. There's no rules against driving while under the influence of Nicotine or Caffeine because they don't affect us as badly as any of the harder drugs--Ecstasy, Opiates, Barbiturates, Inhalants, Meth, Ether--even Alcohol alters your perception and reaction times enough to make it dangerous for you to be in charge of anything while under the influence.

I don't deny that Tobacco has long-term problems--namely cancer, brittle hair and wrinkles, brittle bones, stained teeth, depressed appetite. But all drugs do, the problem I have is more on the intertwined-ness of it with our society. As well as things like 13 year old girls smoking 3 packs a day(A kid was arrested at my school once for having cigarettes in his car. 19 is the age at which you're allowed to buy them in my state--but it hasn't stopped younger people from getting ahold of them).

Slaves were also imported for Sugar Cane, Cotton, and similar industry. It wasn't just tobacco, not nearly.

More to it than the side effects or the brain damage, at least to me. More people have died and will die from tobacco related causes than any other drug know to man in the past present and probably future. The fact that people can function in society makes it the most insidious drug too. Also harming the health of those around then, and in their wombs. People addicted to tobacco act like other addicts and deny the fact that it is an addiction or they would not be using it!

Tobacco profits were the first incentive for bringing slaves to America. When it proved to be profitable other crops were introduced. I doubt than slavery would have existed on this continent were it not for the huge demand world wide for tobacco. Cotton and sugar just did not have the markup tobacco had.

That has to do with cultural saturation and acceptance, not the addictive nature of the drug. If people could only light up once or twice a day, because they had to hide it, the health effects would be far less extreme.